Public Administration Models

The Public Administration Models are different ways of administering the State, delimiting the action of public
agents, and this action outlines the way in which services will be provided to society. Public administration is
basically divided into patrimonialist administration, bureaucratic public administration, managerial public
administration and public governance model.

The historical evolution of the models has demonstrated the State's deep need to adapt to the complex demands of
society and globalization that mark the redefinition of the structure of the State and its consequent breaking of
paradigms with past models.

1. The patrimonialist model

The patrimonialist model comes from Absolutist States, since the sovereign centralized all power in himself, with
no distinctions between public and private, with the State being used as an extension of the power of the leader.

Costin (2010) points out that the king's power was seen as an investiture by divine providence, therefore, his
subjects should be loyal to the sovereign and not to the nation. Any threat to the king's power was considered
sacrilege.

Bergue (2011) , states that in the patrimonialist model, people (public servants) are considered employees of the
administrator and not of the state entity, that is, the public service space is assumed by the manager, as an
extension of his domains. nepotism becomes a trend, positions are considered as prebends, profitable and with
little effort. The jobs and benefits that are earned by the State are usually linked to personal interests and not to
public interests. As a result, the public servant no longer has a relationship with the position, but with the agent
who provided the function, a personal relationship. The patrimonialist model still has repercussions in public
administration in practices such as the physiologism arising from the extension of the leader's power, a striking
feature of this model, since in the context of current public administration it is a practice that aims to satisfy a
particular interest or a specific group to the detriment of the common good. A similar practice is clientelism, more
focused on the party issue, which consists of the exchange of favors between the holder of power and those who
vote. These traits operate in contemporary public administration, whether in the misuse of a public good by the
public servant, or in the use of the state apparatus as an extension of the power of the political agent. All these
actions contribute to the endemic corruption that occurs in the public environment and affects society, which is
another striking feature of the patrimonialist model, given that public things are misused by public agents.

In a patrimonialist administration, the pursued interest is always that of who owns the State apparatus, be it the
sovereign or a specific group of people, thus the model does not aim at the interest of the community. The
administration belongs to the State, but it is not public, that is, the interest of the citizen is left aside, being seen
only as a mere support of the Government.

2 Bureaucratic Model

The bureaucratic model, as a counterproposal to the patrimonialist model, is characterized as Max Weber's ideal
type of rational-legal domination, whose objective is to combat nepotism and corruption arising from the previous
model. It is worth noting that just as Weber states that there is no such thing as a pure model of domination, there
are no pure models of public administration. What happened was a predominance of some at specific moments in
history.

Three characteristics of the bureaucratic model are considered to be the main ones: formality, impersonality and
professionalism. These characteristics go against the peculiarities of the patrimonialist model.

The formality imposes a standardization of procedures, a regulation, that is, it seeks to avoid individual discretion.
The performance of the servers is limited, based only on regulations; impersonality makes it clear that hierarchical
positions do not belong to individuals, but to organizations. Therefore, individual appropriation of power is
avoided and professionalism based on merit directly attacks nepotism, given that positions can no longer be
considered as a bargaining chip or privileges, but are achieved through broad competition, that is, they require up
better technical skills and knowledge. Still according to Secchi (2009), other characteristics of the model derive
from professionalism, the separation between public and private property, paid work, rational division of tasks and
separation of living and working environments. Controls of processes and entry into the public career are always
necessary, with rules in place admission, control over purchases, in order to avoid abuse, inefficiency and
incapacity.

Therefore, at first, the bureaucratic public administration model had the effects for which it was proposed.
However, Vargas acted in a context where a more interventionist vision of the State was growing in the world,
mainly after the 1937 Constitution, and in the conjuncture of the Welfare State there were some dysfunctions of
the bureaucratic model.

Bresser Pereira (1996) states that with the advent of the social and economic State, it was verified that the
bureaucratic public administration did not guarantee speed, good quality, or low cost for the provision of services
to the public. The bureaucratic public administration, in fact, is slow, expensive, self-reported and little or not
oriented to meeting citizens' demands.

According to Klering et al. (2010), the bureaucratic model presents some dysfunctions, the main one being that
control becomes the employee's reason for being and, as a consequence, the State turns to itself, leaving aside its
main mission of serving the community. As a result of this fact, the dissatisfaction of citizens who perceive the
inability of the State to meet their needs grows.

In this way, it can be seen that the State, in order to suppress nepotism and corruption, uses rigid control - the great
merit of the model - but at high costs. Due to the emphasis on controlling the means, public administration
becomes inefficient, the opposite of what the model intends, as the model proves to be little oriented towards
citizens' demands.

The crisis of bureaucratic public administration began during the military regime, mainly due to the lack of
consolidation of a professional bureaucracy in the country. It got worse after the 1988 Constitution, when the
administration began to suffer from the profound bureaucratic rigidity. The consequences of the survival of the
patrimonialist model allied with bureaucratic rigidity will be the high cost and low quality of public administration
Bresser Pereira (1996).

3 Management Model

During the military regime there was the first attempt to overcome bureaucratic rigidity with Decree-Law 200 of
1967; through decentralization, where the activities of producing goods and services were transferred to
municipalities, foundations, public companies and mixed economy companies; and through the flexibility of its
administration, greater efficiency was sought in the economic activities of the State Bresser Pereira, (1996).

The decentralization proposal started from the idea of releasing the central management structure from the
execution routines, in order to concentrate them on planning, supervision, coordination and control activities. In
addition, in the area of personnel, the legal document was based on some principles such as valuing and dignifying
the civil service and public servants. As a consequence of this, there was an increase in productivity,
professionalization and improvement of civil servants, strengthening of the merit system for admission, granting
greater autonomy to directors and heads in personnel administration, among others (COSTIN, 2010).

In the 1990s, the managerial model was consolidated as a new paradigm of public administration, in response to
the great crisis of the State in the 1980s, which imposed the need to rebuild it and to globalization, which made it
imperative to redefine its functions (BRESSER PEREIRA, 1996).

Managerial public administration, according to Secchi (2009), is a normative model for structuring and managing
public administration whose values are efficiency, effectiveness and competitiveness. The managerial model does
not deny all the principles of the bureaucratic model, on the contrary, it is supported by the previous model, but
giving flexibility to some of its fundamental principles, such as admission according to strict criteria of merit, the
existence of a structured and universal remuneration system , careers, constant performance evaluation, systematic
training (BRASIL, 1995).

The fundamental difference between the models is in the control, the managerial model has as one of its main
characteristics an administration focused on the control of results and not processes. Due to the fact that the model
comes with the intention of bringing effectiveness in the provision of services, it does not focus on controlling the
means, but the ends.
In managerial public administration, the strategy focuses (1) on the precise definition of the objectives that the
public administrator must achieve in his unit, (2) on the guarantee of the administrator's autonomy in the
management of the human, material and financial resources assigned to him made available so that it can achieve
the contracted objectives, and (3) for the control or posterior collection of the results (BRASIL, 1995, p. 16).

According to Matias Pereira (2008), from the implementation of the post-bureaucratic paradigm, inspired by
business administration, management tools from the private sector were absorbed and adapted for the public sector
with the aim of being an administration guided by the values of efficiency and quality in the provision of public
services, always aiming to meet the citizen's demand. According to Bresser Pereira (1996), meeting the citizen's
demand comes with a modern, professional and efficient public service. With all the technology coming from
private companies and adapted for the public service, always aiming to improve the provision of services.

4 Public Governance Model

More recently , a new model has emerged, that of public governance, which according to Martins and Marini
(2014, p. 43), “is applied in new times and contexts marked by pluralism, complexity, ambiguity and
fragmentation”.

Different from the contexts of the bureaucratic model (developmental welfare state) and managerial administration
(the neoliberal wave of the 80s and 90s). “It proposes broader scopes, placing itself in a broader perspective of
government ( whole of government ) and society (governance networks), unlike the state approaches of orthodox
public administration and intraorganizational approaches of new public management (with an emphasis on
efficiency and control) ” (MARTINS AND MARINI, 2014, p. 43).

In addition to pluralism, complexity, ambiguity and fragmentation, Secchi (2009, p. 359) highlights other reasons
for the emergence of the Public Governance model. The rise of neoliberal values and denunciation of the State's
inability to deal with collective problems. Another important factor for the emergence of the model is the
management paradigm itself, which focuses its “attention on performance and on dealing with problems rather
than on the questions “who” should implement or “how” public policies should be implemented”. The
preponderant characteristic of pluralism in the construction of public policies, where different actors have the right
to influence this construction, requires a redefinition of the State, as the need for a less hierarchical and
monopolistic State arises.

Public governance proposes a new synthesis, an attempt to see government as a broad, plural and complex process
of society, seeking to integrate politics and administration, management and public policies (MARTINS E
MARINI, 2014, p. 43).

For Martins and Marini (2014, p. 44), “Public governance is a process of generating public value based on certain
institutional capacities and qualities; the collaboration between public and private agents in the co-production of
services, policies and public goods and the improvement of performance”. The main characteristic of the model is
the relational approach, that is, the participation of different actors influencing the construction of public policies.
This differentiated connection approach between the government system and the environment surrounding the
government is what differentiates the public governance model from the managerial model (SECCHI, 2009).

Secchi (2009, p. 359) notes another important characteristic of the model is the “recovery of politics within public
administration, reducing the importance of technical criteria in decision-making processes and strengthening
participatory deliberation mechanisms in the public sphere”. In short, public governance provides organizational
platforms to facilitate the achievement of public objectives such as the involvement of citizens in the construction
of policies, making use of deliberative democracy mechanisms and public policy networks (SECCHI, 2009).

summary table
Table 01: summary of public administration models
MODEL ORIGIN GOAL CHARACTERISTICS
patrimonialist 1808 – Arrival of the Implement in Brazil an Nepotism, corruption,
Royal Family administration model typical of corporatism, etc.
absolutist countries.
Bureaucratic 1930 – Getúlio Avoid practices of the Patrimonial Formality, professionalism,
Vargas model through the withdrawal of impersonality.
 Power from the sovereign's hand.
Managerial nineteen ninety Improve the previous model by Decentralization, flexibility,
neutralizing dysfunctions and modernization, etc.
bringing greater efficiency.
public Recent Provide greater involvement of Deliberative democracy and
governance different actors in the construction public policy networks.
of public policies.